The Angels Wash Their Faces

Former United States President Ronald Reagan stars with the Dead End Kids as a bare-knuckled urban district attorney who crusades in the defense of a kid who's been framed for arson and murder in The Angels Wash Their Faces.

When Gabe Ryan (Frankie Thomas) gets out of reform school, he moves to a new neighborhood with his sister, Joy (Ann Sheridan), trying to start his life over. He falls in with the Termites (The Dead End Kids), a gang of good-hearted boys. But when an arsonist accidentally kills one of the Termites, he frames Gabe for murder.

The arsonist, however, does not plan on deputy district attorney Pat Remson's (Reagan) relentless quest for the truth—or on the single-minded determination of the Termites to find the real killer.